Gennady Zyuganov

Your should understand that a clever propaganda worker
and a skilled politician will never talk in the same
language with different audiences.

Gennady Zyuganov, 1995

Part I. Biography

Gennady Andreyevich Zyuganov was born in the village of
Mymrino, Orel region, in 1944. His first job was that of a
high-school Physics teacher, in 1961. From 1964 to 1967
Zyuganov served in the army (Radiation, Chemical, and
Bio Intelligence). He joined the Communist Party of
the Soviet Union (CPSU)
in 1966. Zyuganov is a graduate of Orel
Education Institute (Physics/Mathematics) and the Academy
of Political Science, has a Ph.D. in Philosophy.
He taught Mathematics and Philosophy as a college professor.

Zyuganov was elected first secretary of a local
committee, then of Orel City Committee, then of Orel
Region Commitee of VLKSM.
Since 1974, he held positions of secretary, then second
secretary of Orel City Committee of the Communist Party,
the Propaganda and Political Agitation Department Chair
at Orel Region Committee of the Communist Party. Since
1983, an instructor, then a sector chair at the Department
of Propaganda of the Central Committee of the CPSU.

Since 1989, the Vice Chairman
of the Ideology Department of the CPSU.
Zyuganov claims that his responsibilities included
supervision over the Soviet nuclear program and gave him
access to the so-called "special folder" with
super-secret plans of actions that would be taken in cases
of major emergencies. This claim is hard to verify, but
is not entirely surprising: the Ideology Department
used to poke its nose everywhere.

In 1990, Zyuganov played an active part in creation of
the RSFSR Communist Party. He became a member of the Central
Committee of the RSFSR Communist Party, then its secretary.

Since 1992, Gennady Zyuganov is the First Secretary of
the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the
Russian Federation (CPRF). He demonstrated his skills of
an organizer by restoring the Communist Party
from scratch and winning competition among the leftist
movements. In December, 1995, the Communist Party
of the Russian Federation won 22.30% of the party
list vote and 34.89% of the Duma seats (157). Their faction
is the largest in the new Duma. Their allies, Agrarian
Party, Nikolai Ryzhkov's Power to the People,
and Women of Russia bring in 32 more seats.

Part II. Views

Gennady Zyuganov described
the parliamentary election results as a
vote of no-confidence in the Chernomyrdin
government.
According to Zyuganov, as in October 1917, Russia
stands at a crossroads, facing an unpopular war, the absence of fair land
reform, ethnic conflicts, and inadequate state regulation of the economy.
As in 1917, Zyuganov writes, the
"reactionary-bureaucratic" path of development has been exhausted, and Russia
must now turn to a "revolutionary-democratic" path. Drawing on
Lenin's
approach
to similar problems, the current Communist leader advocated the following steps
to achieve a "peaceful revolution": changing economic policy "to stimulate
production"; "restoring property rights to labor collectives"; establishing
legislative control over the executive branch; and "restoring the independent
international position and true sovereignty of Russia," which Zyuganov says
would involve reviving a union of some former Soviet republics "on a voluntary
basis."

According to the November 29, 1995, issue of Segodnya,
Gennady Zyuganov said that the reintegration of former
Soviet republics has "extraordinarily large significance" for
his party. He says he favors quick economic union with Ukraine,
Belarus, and Kazakhstan and adds that Russia can unify with other
republics as soon as its economy starts to improve. The Communists
propose only one condition for cooperation with the Caucasus
regions of Russia: "a thousand-year treaty banning secession".

In his book "Beyond the Horizon", published in 1995, Zyuganov
writes, "Perceptions, culture, and ideology of the Western world
are more and more significantly affected by Judaic diaspora,
whose influence is consistently growing by the day, even by the
hour." His convoluted prose echoes the stereotypes and
conspiracy theories prevalent in traditional
anti-Semitic tracts: "The Jewish diaspora, which
traditionally controlled the financial life of the
continent, began expanding its own market by becoming
the bearer of the controlling packet of shares in the
complete industrial-economic system of Western
civilization." Zyuganov goes on to emphasize
the "special meaning" therefore acquired by "Slav
civilization represented by the Russian Empire that
became the last opponent of Western hegemonism".

In his article "Back to the Future" published in
the New York
Times on February 1, Zyuganov hinted that Russia will not
be democratic if he becomes president:
"We respect your democratic traditions and outstanding achievements. [...]
Recognizing the uniqueness of the American experience,
we insist on acknowledgment of our equal right to follow
our own path in accordance with our traditions and conditions."
He also promised return to the imperialist foreign policy:
"Our foreign policy priority would be to
maintain continuity with the foreign policies of
pre-revolutionary Russia and the Soviet Union. We would
seek to restore our state's unique role as the pivot and
fulcrum of a Eurasian continental bloc - and its
consequent role as a necessary balance between East and West."
In the meanwhile, Zyuganov implied that Russian Communists
would like to follow the path of Red China in economy and
politics: "Above all, we would concentrate on internal healing and
national rebirth. [...] We are deeply interested in expanding
economic cooperation and educational, scientific and
cultural exchanges. We are ready to guarantee American
investments and to create better conditions for them than now exist."

On February 27, 1996, Zyuganov spoke at a
meeting between a
delegation from Russia's State Duma and students and instructors
of the International Relations Institute in Kiev.
Russia has no right to "make big geopolitical mistakes," Zyuganov said.
"There are attempts to involve us into a squabble with Ukraine, and this
is inadmissible," he declared. "We must also do all we can to prevent
clashes between Orthodox Church members
and Muslims, and aggravation of relations with China."

With reference to the problem of Russian speakers in the Crimea
Zyuganov said that the faction
he leads wants to make "the approaches of Moscow, Kiev and
Simferopol to the processes taking
place now as close as possible, and to have the rights of our
compatriots protected and restored in accordance with international
norms without infringing on anyone's sovereignty."

As for the restoration of peace in Chechnya, there is a need to
form an interdepartmental commission to resolve this problem,
appoint one of the deputy prime ministers to monitor its work,
convene the Congress of Caucasian Peoples for a conference,
take urgent steps to prevent arms for criminal or mercenary
groups from reaching the area, and gradually withdraw the army
from places "where the situation is relatively calm," Zyuganov said.

Western investors are concerned about prospects for
doing business under communism, but Zyuganov, comparing Russia to
communist China, said they had nothing to fear. However, in the
same breath, he belittled their importance to the Russian
economy in the past five years.
``They invested more in one region in China in five years of
reform than in the whole of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. They're
not scared of the communist government there,'' Zyuganov said in April,
campaigning in Samara, where at least 3,000 people squeezed into a meeting
hall and filled the street outside, straining to hear his
voice over a loudspeaker.

In a May 12 interview with the Russian TV (RTR) weekly analytical
program "Zerkalo," Gennady Zyuganov revealed the main points
of his economic program. Although the free market is "a natural and
normal phenomenon" that is 7,000 years old, an unregulated market is
unsuitable for Russia, he argued. Zyuganov added that he
supports various forms of property ownership, including private,
although he said he gives priority to the "public property forms"
that take into consideration Russia's "national character." He said
the state should own a controlling share in various sectors of the
economy, including energy, transport, military industry, education,
and science. However, Zyuganov declared that there will be no
forced renationalization, and only loss-making enterprises may have
their privatization reversed. Nevertheless, during a recent campaign
swing through St. Petersburg, Zyuganov said he agrees with
scholars who say the optimum balance of state and private property
in an economy is 61% to 39%, respectively.

In an interview with the
opposition weekly Zavtra (no. 17), Zyuganov
declared that national culture and morals are being deliberately
destroyed in Russia. He advocated more funding for and state
control over the development of Russian culture, and proposed
introducing censorship of films, books, and advertisements
imported from abroad. In addition, Zyuganov argued that
a "public council" for television should be instituted, which
would consist of prominent scholars, writers, and priests. The
council would oversee television schedules and reduce the number
of programs featuring money, murders, and pornography, which
Zyuganov said are the only things currently shown on
television. Speaking about the enormous role of the Russian Orthodox
Church in Russian culture and politics, Zyuganov advocated
placing restrictions on foreign religious groups, which he said
are encouraged by the current authorities.

Part III. The Presidential Campaign

Soon after
the 1995 parliamentary elections, Zyuganov told the press
that if his comrades nominate him for president, he will stand.
And the comrades did not let their leader down.

An initiative group nominating
Gennady Zyuganov for president was formed on January 9, 1996, in
Moscow. Valentin Chikin and Alexander Prokhanov, the head
editors of Sovetskaya Rossiya and Zavtra, joined the group;
Chikin called Zyuganov "an absolutely irreproachable person
morally, a bold strategist and a skillful tactician."
Prokhanov has in the past called for all communist and nationalist
forces to unite their efforts against the current regime.

A closed January 12 plenum of the
Central Committee of the CPRF
officially postponed a decision on nominating a presidential candidate
until a February 15 party conference. However, ITAR-TASS
reported that the committee members decided to back
Gennady Zyuganov.

The Agrarian Party will back Gennady Zyuganov in the
presidential elections, party leader Mikhail Lapshin announced on
January 29, 1996.
On February 1, Oleg Shenin, chairman of the Union of
Communist Parties-Communist Party of the Soviet Union, gave
Zyuganov's candidacy his blessing, Ekho Moskvy
and Russian TV reported. Like Viktor Anpilov's
Labor Russia, which has also endorsed Zyuganov,
Shenin's party
is small, but its support reduces the chances that a far-left
candidate will split the communist vote in June.

On February 15, 1996, a conference of the Communist Party of the Russian
Federation nominated Gennady Zyuganov as the party's
presidential candidate.

The Day of Defenders of the Fatherland, formerly Soviet Army
Day, was marked on February 23 by various events held throughout
Russia. Some 5,000 communist-patriotic hardliners marched in Moscow
and were addressed by Gennady Zyuganov. Zyuganov denounced
President Boris Yeltsin's February 23 speech to
the parliament, saying that it was a "populist" speech that had "no
conceptual view of the development of the country nor an honest,
critical evaluation of everything that is taking place."

The Central Electoral Commission has registered
Gennady Zyuganov as the first candidate for
the June 16 presidential elections on March 4. Zyuganov may now
officially begin campaigning and may collect money from the electoral
commission, which will be allocated to all registered candidates.
Along with a list of 1.7 million signatures supporting his candidacy,
Zyuganov submitted tax returns for the last two years to the
commission, declaring his total pre-tax income for 1995 at
about 30 million rubles ($6,300). The same day, representatives
of 25 left-wing groups, including Agrarian Party leader
Mikhail Lapshin and Power to the People head
Nikolai Ryzhkov, formed an electoral "bloc of popular
patriotic forces" and signed an agreement supporting Zyuganov
as their sole presidential candidate. However, some hardliners including
Viktor Anpilov's Workers' Russia, the Russian
Communist Workers' Party, and Sergei Baburin's
Russian Popular Union refused to sign the document
because it does not call for a restoration of the Soviet Union.
Zyuganov said he still hopes to cooperate with
politicians such as Alexander Rutskoi,
Alexander Lebed,
Svyatoslav Fedorov,
and Stanislav Govorukhin, all
of whom agreed last week to form a "third force"
supporting neither Yeltsin
nor Zyuganov for president. Later, Zyuganov
picked up the endorsements of Anpilov,
Union of Officers head Stanislav Terekhov,
and former vice president Alexander Rutskoi.

Zyuganov has called for
a revision of Yeltsin's ambitious
privatization program, which has put huge chunks
of state property into private hands but has created a class
of wealthy businessmen widely despised by workers.

Zyuganov unveiled his election program at a March 17 rally
in Moscow, Russian and Western agencies reported. If he comes to
power, Zyuganov promised among other things to guarantee
all citizens the right to work, increase wages and pensions,
compensate those whose savings were eroded by inflation, end the
war in Chechnya, strengthen the ruble, and establish a state
monopoly on trade in goods "of strategic significance" within a
"mixed economy." He denounced the Belovezhsk accords that brought
an end to the USSR but promised not to "threaten anyone's
sovereignty" if he were elected. Like the KPRF election
platform approved before the Duma elections, Zyuganov's
platform does not contain the words "Leninism,"
"communism," or "nationalization."

In early April, Zyuganov campaigned in Smolensk, where
he addressed a egg-factory workers with a giant portrait of
Lenin as a backdrop.
Private property, he said, should be limited to garden plots,
just as it was in Soviet times. He advocated a
return to strong state control of the economy and indicated
he would limit the availability of foreign goods,
which dominate the shelves of Russian stores.
``The social democracy of the Western European style has no
chance of success in Russia,'' Zyuganov said.

Zyuganov finished second in the first round (32%),
behind Yeltsin (35%).
The two will meet in the runoff (June 30 or July 7).